Light

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/159410596″ params=”color=ff9900&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=false” width=”100%” height=”100″ iframe=”true” /]World Premiere Performed by Michigan State University Symphony Band in April 2005
John T. Madden, conductor

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/137418416″ params=”color=ff9900&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=false” width=”100%” height=”100″ iframe=”true” /]Performed by Rutgers Wind Ensemble on November 16, 2007
Dr. William Berz, conductor

In the summer of 2004 I was working on a piece for concert band. This same summer, I was doing a lot of traveling for my summer job. I was inspired by the way that light would affect my experience on these travels. ‘Light’ is composed of different sections that reflect different settings of light.

The beginning of the piece depicts a slow steady climb in an airplane on an overcast day which is greeted by a fanfare that represents light as the airplane breeches the clouds. Once in the air, the light playfully dances along the tops of clouds and the landscape below. Most of the travels involved Chicago in some way and I always enjoyed driving into Chicago and watching how the light became more dense as cars and city lights consumed the night sky.

There is an underlying rhythmic structure that serves as the backbone of the work. I chose to take the Morse code for ‘light’ and turn the structure into a rhythm where the dot would get half the value of the dash. For example, if the dash were to represent a quarter note, then the dot would corresponded to an eighth note. The code is as follows: